Journalism, though an exacting pursuit, leaves its skillful followers a little leisure in which to cultivate literature. It the heyday of those ephemeral trifles, Annuals, and Mr. Bryant found time to edit one, with the assistance of his friend Mr. Verplanck, and his acquaintance Mr. Robert C. Sands (who, by the way, was one of the editors of the _Commercial Advertiser_), and a very creditable work it was. His contributions to "The Talisman" included some of his best poems. Poetry was the natural expression of his genius--a fact which he could never understand, for it always seemed to him that prose was the natural expression of all mankind. His prose was, and always continued to be, masterly. Its earliest examples, outside of his critical papers in the _North American Review_ and other periodicals (and outside of the _Evening Post_, of course), are two stories entitled "Medfield" and "The Skeleton's Cave," contributed by him to "Tales of the Glauber Spa" (1832)--a collection of original stories by Mr. James K. Paulding, Mr. Verplanck, Mr. Sands, Mr. William Leggett, and Miss Catharine Sedgwick. Three years before (1828) he had become the chief editor of the _Evening Post_. Associated with him was Mr. Leggett, who had shown some talent as a writer of sketches and stories, and who had failed, like himself, in conducting a critical publication, for which his countrymen were not ready. He made a second collection of his poems at this time (1832), a copy of which was sent by Mr. Verplanck to Mr. Washington Irving, who was then, what he had been for years, the idol of English readers, and not without weight with the Trade. Would he see if some English house would not reprint it? No leading publisher nibbled at it, not even Murray, who was Mr. Irving's publisher; but an obscure bookseller named Andrews finally agreed to undertake it, if Mr. Irving would put his valuable name on the title-page as the editor. He was not acquainted with Mr. Bryant, but he was a kind-hearted, large-souled gentleman, who knew good poetry when he saw it, and he consented to "edit" the book. He was not a success in the estimation of Andrews, who came to him one day, by no means a merry Andrew, and declared that the book would ruin him unless one or more changes were made in the text. What was amiss in it? He turned to the "Song of Marion's Men," and stumbled over an obnoxious couplet in the first stanza: "The British soldier trembles When Marion's name is told." "That won't do at all, you know." The absurdity of the objection must have struck the humorist comically; but as he wanted the volume republished, he good-naturedly saved the proverbial valor of the British soldier by changing the first line to "The foeman trembles in his camp,"